From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 181 Bathroom

"It's a pity I wasn't there. If I had seen the huge beast running through the dungeon, I would have used a powerful Transfiguration spell to turn it into a bleating, gentle lamb." Lockhart declared this to every grade in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

Ron booed in disdain at this.

Hermione glared at Ron: "How could you do that to a professor!"

"You don't even know what he did when the dungeon was vandalized," said Ron. "He was the first one to get under a table, for God's sake, in front of all those students. And he can still say things like that. Does he think everyone has forgotten about it?"

"You didn't see it!" Hermione still didn't give up.

"Neville saw it," Ron continued to hurt Lockhart's image in Hermione's mind, "and in his own words, 'At least I'm still sitting on the chair and didn't roll under the table like Professor Lockhart.'"

Hermione fell silent.

Ron shrugged and took out a ruler to measure his History of Magic paper. The ghost professor Binns required a length of three feet, but Ron's illegible paper was still eight inches short of the standard.

Just then, Harry joined them.

Although the trio were always inseparable, Harry always got into some strange troubles, especially in Potions class.

He had another detention, so he was able to join Ron and Hermione in the library after lunch.

"What do you think, is the legend of the Chamber of Secrets true or false?" This question has been bothering Harry for several days, especially when every student in the corridor is talking about it.

"Fake." Ron said without hesitation.

"Really." Hermione expressed the exact opposite opinion.

"If the heir of Slytherin could really eliminate all Muggle-borns in the school, he should have done it long ago. Why wait until now?" Ron didn't take the word "Chamber of Secrets" to heart at all. "Whether it was the ominous thing you saw, the evil bird that attacked the first-year students, or the big guy that appeared in the dungeon classroom that day, they were just magical animals that accidentally ran into the school. There's nothing to be surprised about."

Harry looked at Hermione again, and she snapped the book shut. "The reason is simple - all legends have a certain basis in fact, and there are indeed magical creatures in the castle that shouldn't appear. Who knows, the next one might be one with great lethality."

Now the score was tied at 1-1, and Harry didn't know who to listen to, so they decided to ask the History of Magic professor together.

----

There was not much that Professor Binns could tell them, and it was almost the same as the rumors about the Chamber of Secrets that were already circulating in the castle.

Harry and Ron both thought that Professor Binns' words were meaningless, but Hermione didn't think so.

"If the Chamber of Secrets is really such a secret legend, why did it spread so quickly after the first bloodshed?" Hermione asked her two friends.

Seeing their confused expressions, Hermione knew she had asked the wrong person, so she continued to explain, "Hogwarts is an ancient school with a history of more than a thousand years. Not to mention that it is a place where magic is taught. It is normal for some legends to circulate here. But why would the first thing that comes to mind be the Chamber of Secrets, rather than an ancient magic wizard like Ivy who came from more than a hundred years ago, or a goblin who once fought a battle with him at Hogwarts?"

"Why?" Harry asked stupidly, not understanding what the difference was.

"Because I don't know why!" Hermione replied angrily. She was really fed up with the brains of these two people, and secretly made up her mind to urge them to do their own homework, at least to exercise their brains.

The answer to Hermione's question was actually very simple, because the Chamber of Secrets had been opened once before fifty years ago, and the Ministry of Magic reopened its investigation into the Chamber of Secrets during the summer vacation. Although no progress was made except for the consumption of many bottles of wine, the Ministry's actions were eventually reported back to the school through students whose families had civil servants.

Therefore, when the bloody incident occurred, the "Chamber of Secrets" that was mentioned during the summer vacation or in letters to parents immediately became the truth of the rumors, even if it really had nothing to do with the series of events that took place at Hogwarts this year.

Harry and Ron wanted to remind Hermione that they were on the wrong road, but they didn't dare to make a loud noise because they all found that this was outside Lockhart's office. If they were entangled by him, it would probably take a while to get away.

"This!" Harry whispered, causing Hermione to turn around. "This is the armor!"

"The one that can talk?" Ron also stopped in front of the shining armor. It held a giant hammer in its hand and guarded the empty corridor loyally.

"Hey! Hello!" Ron stretched out his hand and waved it in front of the eyes of the armor, if it really had eyes.

Of course no one answered.

"Can it really talk? And in three completely different voices?" Ron began to doubt his brother's narration. "Could it be that there are three ghosts hiding in there to play tricks on you?"

"Don't!" It was too late for Harry to stop him. Ron lifted the visor of his armor and put his face inside.

"There's nothing in it!" Ron said in a muffled voice, and then he found that his head was stuck in the helmet, as if the armor lifted the mask and swallowed his head into its stomach.

"Help!" Ron called out to his good brother Harry.

Harry reached for the visor of his helmet.

Hermione tapped her vinewood wand on the mask, and Ron's head was coughed out of the armor, the clanging of metal making quite a noise in the corridor.

"Who's outside?" All three heard Lockhart's voice.

"Let's go!" Harry pushed his two friends, trying to get away from Lockhart's office.

Lockhart was number one on Harry's "list of people he least wanted to see at Hogwarts". Incidentally, the second was Snape, and it took Harry a long time to put him in this position, because he wouldn't cling to Harry like Lockhart would, and Harry gradually got used to the occasional deductions and detentions.

"Hide here!" Ron quickly opened a door. He didn't want to see Lockhart either because he was "allergic to his smile."

"Hey!" Before Hermione could protest, she was pushed into the door. The two boys filed in and quickly closed the door.

They heard Lockhart's office door open and the sound of his shiny boots clacking down the corridor, but they dared not make even a sound until the door closed again.

"Huh..." Harry and Ron both breathed a sigh of relief, and then they realized that they had broken into a bathroom, and it was the girls' bathroom.

It was a dreary, dilapidated place, with a row of peeling stone pools beneath a large, stained, cracked mirror.

The floor was wet, and a few candles were burning low on the brackets, emitting a dim light that made the floor look gloomy.

The wooden door of the toilet cubicle had peeling paint and was covered with scratches. One of the doors had come off its hinges and was hanging there shaky.

"No wonder there was a puddle of water under the armor that day." Harry muttered, preparing to open the door and leave.

But his voice caught the attention of the fourth "living thing" in the bathroom. "Is there a boy here?"

Both Harry and Ron saw a silver head popping out of the innermost compartment.

"Oh, hello, Myrtle." Hermione greeted calmly, not at all frightened by the fact that the other person was a ghost in the toilet.

Harry and Ron were even more inclined to back off; they had already witnessed how difficult Myrtle could be at the Deathday party.

"What are you doing here?" Myrtle looked at the three people with suspicion.

"This is it," Hermione had thought of an explanation in a short time, "Harry heard someone talking in the corridor that day, and it seemed to come from here."

"I'm the only one here!" Myrtle was about to cry.

"We all know this belongs to you!" Hermione quickly made amends. "I mean, there are ghosts using your bathroom to play tricks on Harry."

"What?" Myrtle raised her voice.

"Three people, two men and one woman. Right, Harry?" Hermione looked at Harry for his opinion.

“Shameless!” Myrtle was like a broken shower head, spraying silver tears everywhere. “My life here has no joy, only sorrow. Now that I’m dead, people still won’t let me go! In this dark and dilapidated bathroom, my last shelter…what…what…”

All three of them were horrified to find a suspicious halo on Myrtle's face.

"What are you playing at...two men and one woman!" With a splash, Myrtle jumped back into the toilet tank.

The iron triangle looked at each other, shuddered together, and left in a hurry.

They all decided to put their encounter with Myrtle in the girls' bathroom behind them.

"Back to the Chamber of Secrets," Hermione concluded. "Slytherin built it, and his heir will release the monsters inside to purge the school of those unworthy of studying magic."

"Almost everyone," Ron added, "because there aren't any true purebloods anymore."

Hermione glared at him and continued, "If the Chamber of Secrets is indeed opened, then that means there really is a Slytherin Heir."

"Now, think about who in this house is most qualified to be the heir of Slytherin."

Harry and Ron looked at each other, then said in unison: "Ivy!"

"That's it," Hermione shrugged. "We all know him. Ivy doesn't agree with the pure-blood theory. We knew this as early as on the train in the first year. And there is no one in Slytherin House who is more worthy of inheriting the Chamber of Secrets than him. And I also know that Ivy has been busy preparing for OWLs recently and has no time to launch a conspiracy to eliminate Muggle-borns."

"It's possible that the Chamber of Secrets really exists, but what's happened in the school recently may not be related to it," Hermione concluded.

"Then why did the legend of the Chamber of Secrets spread throughout the castle so quickly?" Harry now understood the question Hermione had asked them before.

"I don't know. Maybe someone did it on purpose." Hermione opened her Charms homework and seemed not to waste any more time on this problem.

"Actually..." Harry hesitated for a moment, then stated his own inference. "It's possible that Ivy is related to these things. Remember? We met him in the dungeon that day. It was Ivy who stopped the riot in the first grade flying class. He was even waiting in the school hospital on the day when Filch was attacked."

"Come on, Harry," said Hermione impatiently, "you're just jealous that he doesn't have to go to school!"

"He doesn't have to go to class?" Ron realized this only now.

----

"Chamber of Secrets?" Ivy closed the book and frowned as he looked at Harry who looked uneasy.

He had no idea how Harry was connected to the Chamber of Secrets.

Without Voldemort's interference this year, it should have been a peaceful year. However, problems have occurred frequently and have exceeded Ivy's new school year schedule many times.

Dumbledore decided to secretly check the students' luggage when they returned at Christmas to see if there was anything similar to the bag.

In addition to the Flying Spell, Ivy also found a second-level divination spell for finding objects from the Grimoire of Destruction - Item Locating Spell.

Its effect is similar to locate creature, except that it searches for an object or a member of a large category of objects with which the caster is familiar.

Ive tried both approaches, but received no feedback.

In fact, he no longer had any hope of finding the bag.

However, he believed that if there was someone behind the events at Hogwarts, that person must have some ulterior motive.

As long as he has a goal, it is only a matter of time before he reveals his true colors. And the maximum limit of this time is one year.

Ivy's inference was simple. All the stories in the original book took place within one year. To be precise, it started from summer vacation and lasted until the end of the school year.

So Ivy felt that what was happening in the castle would also take a year as a time unit. He just hoped that the person behind the scenes would not affect OWLs. Ivy did not want to prepare for another year.

"Let me put it this way, Harry." Ivy came back to his senses. "I can't say that the Chamber of Secrets doesn't exist, but that's not something you should consider. Even if someone really intends to use the monster in the Chamber of Secrets to purify Hogwarts, it's not something you, a second-year student, can stop. I hope you can protect yourself and your friends. If you find anything, you can come and tell me, or you can tell Professor McGonagall. She's your head of house, right?"

Looking at Harry with a suspicious look on his face, Ivy really didn't know how to stop him.

This savior, who has an extraordinary spirit of adventure in the original book, is a huge trouble.

Ivy had no interest in being his babysitter, perhaps because she had regained her adult body, but Ivy couldn't just dismiss him. God knew what the reckless Gryffindor would do if he was left unattended.

Especially since a piece of Voldemort's soul is hidden in the scar on Harry's forehead, Ivy still needs Harry to be alive, or at least not die accidentally.

Therefore, all he could do was to persuade Harry to stop causing trouble, especially not to cause trouble related to the Chamber of Secrets. If Harry was really killed by the basilisk, who would he ask for another piece of Voldemort's soul?
This stuff is a scarce commodity, and the less we use it, the less we have!

(End of this chapter)